Inviting Comments To Your Blog Is Not Cut And Dried

Blog owners are periodically asking themselves

How do I invite my readers to leave comments?

Some blog owners think of commenting as the most important way to get new readers.

One of the most seemingly insignificant components of the Blogger template is the link to invite the readers to leave comments. This is not a simple feature - it varies according to where the comment form is placed, and to different language and style decisions.

Variations
There are four comment form placement options, for Blogger blogs.

1. Embedded.
2. Full page.
3. Pop up window.
4. Dynamic template.

There are two display contexts.

1. Index page view (archive retrieval, label search, main page).
2. Post page view.

Some blog owners may confuse index page view, with "Show at most" set to "1 Post", to post page view. This won't be the case. "Show at most" will only apply to main page view. And main page display with only one post displayed, without jump break, will still be index page view.

Some blog owners may confuse index page view, with "Show at most" set to "1 Post", to post page view. This won't be the case. "Show at most" will only apply to main page view. And main page display with only one post displayed, without jump break, will still be index page view.

The placement option, added to the display context, creates a combination of various needs for phrasing the simple caption, which I will call for example

Please, leave a comment!

That simple invitation can vary according to the the nationality of the blog owner, and to the nature of the blog.

Blog Language
Comments is an English word. Every blog that's published in a non English language has a different word for "comments".

• en français: commentaires.
• in italiano: commenti.
• en español: comentarios.

And some languages phrase plurals significantly.

• 0 comments.
• 1 comment.
• 2 comments.

Very few blog owners publish a blog in (USA) English, and want the blog captioned with "1 comments", or "2 comment".

Long ago, somebody decided that inviting comments would be easier, if a blog with 0 comments was captioned with "No comments". Then, another grammar expert (lawyer?) decided that "No comments" could be interpreted by some people as "We don't want comments!".

Blog Nature
Then, some blog owners don't like the word "comments", they feel that the word should be changed, to reflect the nature of their blog. For my blog, "Chucks Musings", I would use "musings", instead of "comments" (but with dynamic templates, that option is not yet available). Other blog owners have used "dreams", "introspections", and "wanderings" (to name a few).

Form Placement
One of the most controversial features of comments is the limitation of displaying the individual comments, and the comment form, only beneath the individual posts. On the main page, for all comment placement options, you will see the comment caption "No comments", "1 comment", etc - which then links to the display of existing comments - and to the form to publish a comment.

All existing placement options now display existing comments only beneath the individual posts. With the full page and popup window options, a link captioned "Post a Comment" then leads to the comment form itself.

With the full page and popup window form, for the convenience of the owner and reader, existing comments are displayed there also. And, wherever the comment form is displayed, so must be the hated CAPTCHA form.

The Reader's Language
To further the confusion, some blog features are automatically translated into the readers language - when the reader is logged in to Blogger / Google, and when the reader's login status and Blogger profile can be determined by the blog display. In some cases, the readers location is used.

Sometimes, both the blog owner and reader could read / speak different languages, neither being English. Not every world citizen understands "Please, leave a comment!" - or even "Post a Comment". And some blogs are published in French - and read in both Italian and Spanish.

The Tower Of Babel
The Tower Of Babel is not going away, in this lifetime.

Two Level Comments, And Required Updates To Our Blogs

The new two level commenting feature has been out for a short 2 days - and already there are at least half a dozen separate problems being attributed to the introduction of that feature. Not every blog owner understands how intrusive this new feature must have been, to install, into Blogger.

The previous two Blogger feature releases - dynamic templates, and the New Blogger GUI, required major changes to the Blogger GUI. Two level commenting, while not requiring major GUI changes, was still challenging to develop. Two level comments required a significant upgrade to the content of our blogs, and were activated without the decision of the blog owners involved.

The two immediately previous major Blogger releases - dynamic templates, and the New Blogger GUI, each required a major amount of coding and testing. The bulk of those features, though, involved Blogger GUI code, which was separate from the code in our blogs. Also, both of those features are optional, with various menu selections which allow us to activate, at our convenience - and to deactivate, when we find that either feature is not to our liking.

Two level commenting, on the other hand, was automatically and instantly activated. Owners of almost all blogs which publish a full post feed, and which use the embedded comment form, suddenly found their blogs offering this exciting feature. Installation of this feature was a no brainer - if your blog publishes full posts feeds, and uses the embedded comment form, your blog now has two level commenting.

The automatic activation of the feature, combined with some content and formatting problems attributed to the feature, left some blog owners feeling powerless. People reporting some problems are being told to deactivate the full blog feed, or to change from the embedded comment form, to work around the problems. Neither change is preferred, by some blog owners.

As an alternative to either recommended change, some blog owners may find relief from various problems, by reloading a standard blog template, and / or resetting the post template. For blog owners who enjoyed installing a custom third party template, and tweaking the decorations and layout of the posts, this alternative is even less acceptable than the suggested feature deactivations. Yet if it's productive when tried, this technique should define the base causes of some of the problems being reported.

For blog owners who are comfortable with tweaking the post template, a manual post template update may provide a solution, for some blogs. This manual update, if done in reverse, may allow people to deactivate two level commenting, without deactivating the full post feed, or changing from the embedded comment form.

As Blogger developed and tested the changes required, to make two level comments work, they had the ability to test using the Blogger development environment, and various Blogger provided templates. They had no ability to test using the many blog template custmisations, and post template tweaks, which many of us have installed in our personal blogs. That being the case, many of the observed problems are not entirely the fault of Blogger - we have to accept some responsibility also.

In short, if anybody with a blog that publishes a full post feed, and uses the embedded comment form, finds changes in their blogs which are not to their liking, they need to return their blog and post templates to Blogger standard, before feeling themselves entitled to complain

What did Blogger do, this time?

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Two Level Comments And The Comments Time / Date Stamp

Yesterday, Blogger Support delivered one long awaited improvement to our blogs - two level commenting. It was eagerly awaited - and as soon as the Buzz announcement hit the Blogosphere, people were busy checking out the new feature.

Predictably, problem reports have been rolling in, all day today, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken. One noticed problem report concerns the date / time stamp on the comments.

All of the comments on my blog, even on previous posts, now show an incorrect time. I double-checked my setting, it is correctly set my local time.

The general consensus appears to be that all comments are now posting as Pacific Time (USA), regardless of the blog time zone setting.

This problem, along with several others, has been reported to Blogger Support - and they are now looking into this issue.

Watch this space for updates.

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Two Level Commenting Now Available, For Blogger Blogs

Blogger blog owners and viewers have been asking for the ability to post threaded comments, for many years. Today (slightly late for Christmas 2011), Blogger released it's first answer to that request - two level commenting.

Blogger now supports threaded commenting, which means that it is now much easier to differentiate between whether someone is making a general comment on the thread, or responding to another comment on the thread.

This is not what I would call classic "threaded commenting", but it's a reasonable alternative.



If you want to reply to your readers, when they post comments on your blog, that ability is finally here.

You will need a blog with full feeds enabled, and using the embedded comment form. Since private blogs do not publish newsfeeds, this feature will not be available, on private blogs.

As described in the Buzz post, once the comment form and feed are selected, using the New GUI, there's no additional selection needed. Just surf to the blog of your choice, and look under any comment for a new "Reply" button or link.

You'll note that since this feature is provided as part of the embedded comment form, it's built into the standard post template. If your blog, maybe using a custom or third party blog template, lacks threaded commenting, you'll want to refresh the post template, to enable this feature.

Every "Reply" link, whether under an existing or new comment, or under any reply to a comment, when posted, becomes a reply to the original comment. It's quite simple - you have just 2 choices.

• You can post an original comment.
• You can post a reply, to any comment.

And, that's it.

Since two level comments are part of the embedded comment form, you're going to need to check your cookie filters - people using computers with overly restrictive filtering won't be able to use the embedded comment form, and they won't see the two level commenting option. Beyond that issue, two level comments should be simple to use.

The Comment Notification Option Is Subject To The Realities Of Authentication, And Cookie Filtering

Some blog guests cannot understand why they can't get notifications, when someone leaves a comment after them, attached to a post comment form.

Why don't I see the option to "Email follow-up comments to xxxxxxx@yyyyy.zzz"?

or maybe

I selected the option to "Email follow-up comments to xxxxxxx@yyyyy.zzz", but I don't get any reply notifications. Why am I being mistreated by Blogger?

These people do not realise that comment follow-up notifications are subject to the same problems as the embedded comment form.

Many people, preparing to post a comment on their favourite blog, look forward to reading replies from other blog guests - and become confused when they do not see the option to

Email follow-up comments to xxxxxxx@yyyyy.zzz

They don't realise that they will only see that option when they are logged in using a Blogger account - and when their login status is available to the code behind the comment form. Like the desire to post a comment, using one's Blogger / Google account, this option requires availability of the Blogger login cookie, identifying the commenter as being logged in.

An incorrectly set cookie filter can either prevent availability of the comment notification option, when using the embedded comment form (if "third party cookies" are blocked) - or can prevent availability of the option on any comment form (if cookies, in general, are blocked). In either case, the commenter will be treated, by the comment form code, as not being logged in - and no option will be provided.

Also, if the commenter is successfully logged in, but is not using a Blogger account that's attached to an active email address, he / she can select the notification option, but will never receive a notification. This is a typical problem, with a Blogger account setup using a bogus email address, whether accidentally or intentionally.

So, if you don't see the notification option when you post a comment - or if you select the option but never get any email, don't immediately and unilaterally blame the Blogger commenting feature. Do some research, before reporting your problem.

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Dynamic Templates And Embedded Comments

We've been observing problems with commenting on blogs using the inline comment form ("Embedded below post"), ever since Blogger changed the inline form, many months ago. First, we observed an overall problem with cookie filtering and the embedded comment form. Later, a more subtle problem with using the CAPTCHA form with embedded comments was discovered.

Now, we're seeing a similar problem, with the new dynamic templates, and the embedded comment form. This problem may not be any more obvious, to some blog readers, than the preceding problems were.

I've been providing advice, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, for various blog owners whose readers cannot comment, for some time.

Many problems which involve commenting start with content filters.

Generally, the problem is simply caused by overly optimistic cookie and script filtering. Resolution of the problem may involve changing comment form type, for blogs with certain reader populations.

Dynamic templates appear to present other challenges with commenting.

This week, I tried posting test comments in various blogs that use the dynamic templates, as a default view. There are several possible challenges here.

• Main page view may not inform the casual reader that comments are permitted.
• Local rendering of blog content may be a problem, on some computers.
• The mechanics of the dynamic template post overlay may cause confusion.
• Different dynamic views may provide more or less of a challenge.

Main page view may not inform the casual reader that comments are permitted.

Main page view, in the dynamic template, may confuse the reader. Main page view, for blogs not using the dynamic templates, will provide a link below each post, "nn Comments" ("nn" stating the current comment count).

With the reader clicking on the link, the individual post page will be presented, with the browser positioned at the top of the embedded form below the post. The reader will not be immediately aware of the display change - but may simply see the comment form, displayed before his eyes.

The dynamic template equivalent of main page view will show just a snippet of the post, or the complete post - but with no mention of Comments, anywhere. To have any chance of posting a comment, the reader must know to click on the post, and view the post in the overlay.

With the individual post visible in the overlay, the reader must know to scroll to the very bottom of the overlay. With the design of the single post overlay, this involves explicitly scrolling to the very bottom of the screen - again, not an obvious procedure. At the very bottom, one will find the simple caption.

Add a comment

Clicking on the caption, and / or scrolling again, the reader finds the embedded comment form.

With the Classic Dynamic View selected (either by the blog owner, or by the reader), there is no overlay used. Even so, there is another possibility for confusion.

When there are no comments published to a given post, one will see the link "0 comments" or "Add a comment". Clicking on the link, one will scroll to the very top of the comment form.

Depending upon the size of the display, the bulk of the comment form will remain invisible - and again, the need to scroll just a bit farther won't be immediately apparent - and the would be commenter will again go away, in confusion.

Local rendering of blog content may be a problem, on some computers.

Since the dynamic template is being rendered in real time by the readers computer, each display may not refresh, immediately. If the readers computer is busy, or low on resources, the display may not be immediately updated.

There is no indicator in the dynamic view, that indicates to the reader that the display has a pending update. The reader may not observe the delay - and may casually think that there is no comment form available for the page or post.

After entering the comment into the box, selecting the appropriate authentication, and hitting the "Post Comment" button, the reader will be presented with the CAPTCHA form. Options for the second and third steps will vary, at the pleasure of the blog owner.

Again, depending upon how busy the computer is, the CAPTCHA form may be presented immediately - or may require that the reader again scroll to the bottom.

The mechanics of the dynamic template post overlay may cause confusion.

Finally, after the CAPTCHA (when required) is successfully solved, and if comment moderation is being used, the reader is shown the well known (and not always observed) advice

Your comment will be visible after approval.

If, during any of the above steps, the readers computer not rendering the next display promptly, the reader may become confused and close the overlay. The next step will involve the reader communicating with the blog owner (when the owner is fortunate enough).

I wanted to leave you a comment, but your blog doesn't accept comments. What the &*^^% are you doing with the blog, this month?

Different dynamic views may provide more or less of a challenge.

These effects may be more obvious with views that display the complete post in an overlay, and with longer posts.

The Classic and Sidebar views display the complete posts in a more conventional style - and the comment form is more visible. With shorter posts, that fit within the browser window, the comment form is more visible.

Look at one post, from my Musings blog.

My blog, with a short post, displayed using Standard view.

My blog, with a short post, displayed using Classic view.

My blog, with a slightly longer post.



Not all dynamic views will present the "Add a comment" link, as easily displayed for the readers, for all posts on all blogs.

And once again, we have another issue for Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

My readers cannot comment on my blog!

And, another mystery will fill the forums.

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Owners of some #Blogger blogs may observe that reader commenting is not as active, having recently published to a dynamic template. There are a variety of reasons for the change in activity.